DailyDOOH

Dmitry Sokolov

Recent healthcare initiatives (and loop holes) around caloric content in the US have given our industry new weapons to pitch Digital Menus to QSRs and food services.

With top QSR franchises like Wendy’s, McDonald’s and Tim Hortons slowly piloting or partially adopting digital signage in their stores, many digital signage vendors have stepped up efforts pitching full-digital menus, en-masse, across the franchise.

In the midst of all the excitement, largely unnoticed, Canadian franchise OPA! Souvlaki of Greece just took a dive and committed to full digital menu boards across all of its 65-locations. With the help of E Display, a digital signage provider in Calgary, Alberta, OPA! is replacing all of its light box menus with a 3-screen digital signage solution.

The network is built using a hybrid of Samsung’s MagicInfo Pro and custom network and publishing tools designed by E Display.

E Display manages all aspects of network infrastructure as it applies to signage, providing OPA with a single point of contact for all aspects of the new menu system. We are told that the customized solution achieved by E Display replaced an ‘off the shelf’ SaaS software originally specked-in for the project.

The install (I visited my local Vaughan Mills Location) looks great.

The two menu screens are legible, organized and menu options are easy to navigate by glance. The third screen, playing an attract loop, is tasteful as well. Layout and content is created internally by E Display and carries a strong brand message.

The installation is clean with no cabling visible and displays positioned well.

It’s worth noting that as any, the roll-out is not without its learning curves.

A taped ‘Order Here’ sign was affixed to one of the displays at a second location visited. Surely it will soon be integrated in the digital content. Another location could not accommodate the standardized screen sizes due to architectural restrictions. E Display resolved the conflict by deploying the two menu screens in portrait-mode. The resulting customized content is also centrally managed from a single control panel.

“Finding qualified installers in remote locations such as Kelowna, British Columbia and areas of Saskatchewan was also a challenge”, comments Khalid Qadir of E Display.

Welcome to the nuances an integrator needs to expect and prepared to deal with when undertaking a cross-company, multi-location project in the QSR space.

Great job so far and we look forward to a post-roll-out analysis and feedback on the project.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 13th, 2010 at 08:15 @385 and is filed under DailyDOOH Update. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.